5 ms·

And? As long as it isn’t discriminatory, since 49 of the 50 states are at will employment, you can be let go at anytime for any reason or no reason. It might

And? As long as it isn’t discriminatory, since 49 of the 50 states are at will employment, you can be let go at anytime for any reason or no reason. It might come into play with unemployment insurance but the weekly amount is so low it’s laughable.

neilv 1y ago
For better or worse, neither of us is a lawyer, but I'm comfortable in saying that the affected people should: Talk. To. A. Lawyer. Isn't that better than us random Internet people telling them -- although we think something shitty is going on -- they definitely don't have a case, and they definitely shouldn't talk to a lawyer? (For all we know, an actual lawyer might tell them that they actually do have a case.)
- scarface_74 1y ago
  It really doesn’t take a lawyer to know what “at will employment” means. A case for what unless it’s discriminatory. Your employer doesn’t have to justify letting you go - at all. Even looking at your citation, it shows that constructive dismissal is only actionable if you can show that they made working conditions harder and they were targeting you under a law meant to protect you against discrimination Companies have been giving employees an ultimatum between “relocate or quit” forever.
  - neilv 1y ago
    Also, in combination with possible constructive dismissal, the company is possibly defaming the employees in a way that predictably adversely affects their ability to gain new employment. And there may be other potential problems that aren't apparent to me, since I'm not a lawyer. Talking to a lawyer about this is low-effort, low-risk. You get a lawyer's name from friend/family or another kind of lawyer you know, or you call the local bar association referral service (or, if poor, maybe go first to a law school free clinic near you, to see what resources they can point you at). Then you get a free initial consultation with an actual lawyer, who can tell you whether they think you might have a case. That's all I have to say on this topic. (Side Note: You might have been discussing this from a standpoint of Someone Is Wrong On The Internet, and you want to help more people understand At-Will, for example. I can understand that. But I was discussing this from a standpoint of Don't Screw Over Vulnerable People By Discouraging Them From Talking To A Lawyer When I Think They Should.)
    - nradov 1y ago
      You're not making any sense. Who is being defamed in this hypothetical scenario, and how?
    - Aurornis 1y ago
      > the company is possibly defaming the employees in a way that predictably adversely affects their ability to gain new employment. And there may be other potential problems that aren't apparent to me, since I'm not a lawyer. Why is it that the "I'm not a lawyer, but" comments are always giving the worst legal advice? There is no defamation case anywhere in this situation.
      - johnnyanmac 1y ago
        I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to say either way. See a lawyer if you're impacted and see what they say. Don't take legal, medical, nor relationship advice from the internet.
        scarface_74 1y ago
        It’s getting to a point where it’s like you’re saying that I’m not a physicist but you might need to ask one before you jump off of a 25 story building, you might survive.
      - neilv 1y ago
        > There is no defamation case anywhere in this situation. They said they were terminating lots of people for poor performance, while terminating lots of people. And there's plausible reason to suspect, given the frenzy of headcount reductions going on, that it wasn't actually for poor performance. > Why is it that the "I'm not a lawyer, but" comments are always giving the worst legal advice? Why are a couple people on an epic tour de force of commenting, energetically telling people to definitely don't talk to a lawyer about any possible wrongdoing by this company?
        JustExAWS 1y ago
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    >It really doesn’t take a lawyer to know what “at will employment” means. It takes a lawyer to understand an individual's situation, background, and contract in order to see if this is just a bad but legal hand, or in fact something worth filing against. We don't know every engineer's story that is impacted here. >Companies have been giving employees an ultimatum between “relocate or quit” forever. Yes, and severance packages makes it less tempting to try and look into suing.
    - scarface_74 1y ago
      Were you really confused by “your contract” at any job? I’ve signed 10 over the years and they basically all spell out - how much you are going to get paid, when your start date is and you are an at will employee. I was also hired by BigTech in 2020 and assigned to a “virtual office” and my position was designated as “field by design” meaning that it was suppose to be permanently remote. There was nowhere in my contract that I would never be expected to return to office and in fact AWS did tell all of their “field by design” roles that they would have to come into the office by the beginning of the year. I was already gone by then. Don’t you think you would have heard at least one case of a successful lawsuit by employees of at least one of these companies? Especially the US’s second largest employer? You think a local lawyer “recommended by a family friend” is going to successfully take on a trillion dollar+ market cap company?
      - johnnyanmac 1y ago
        >Were you really confused by “your contract” at any job? I live in California and many things have changed over the years in terms of labor laws. So yes, I don't know if what I signed is relevant today (e.g. non-competes). >There was nowhere in my contract that I would never be expected to return to office and in fact AWS did tell all of their “field by design” roles that they would have to come into the office by the beginning of the year. Okay, and some employees may have argued for those protections in their contract during negotiations. I'm not that high up, but I imagine some MSFT workers in Seattle may be. > Don’t you think you would have heard at least one case of a successful lawsuit by employees of at least one of these companies? It may be out there, but we may not have heard of it. I'm not a lawyer, I don't spend my time digging through court cases, and anything I may find may only be regionally valid and not matter to where you or I live. >You think a local lawyer “recommended by a family friend” is going to successfully take on a trillion dollar+ market cap company? Sure, that happens all the time in minor cases. You'd be surprised how sloppy offices can be with compliance. There are still cases of discrimination that courts fine to this day. Again, that's not for me to determine, though. That's for a firm to analyze, accept or reject. I don't know why you're questioning me about a sector I'm not involved in. Ask your "family friend" lawyer to dig up cases for you. They are much better at that than me.
- dymk 1y ago
  Talk to a lawyer is good advice, and there are approximately zero employment lawyers able to take on new clients in the Puget Sound area.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    FYI no reasonable lawyer is going to take a constructive dismissal or defamation claim for this case, like some aggressive commenters are instructing people to do. These aren't winnable claims. If a lawyer did take your case and start billing you for it, they're just milking you for cash until the inevitable dismissal. This is why the "I'm not a lawyer, but" advice on the internet isn't as benign as it seems. It gives some people false ideas about what lawyers can do for them which leads to a lot of wasted time talking to lawyers at best, or a lot of wasted money on a dead-end case at worst.
- renewiltord 1y ago
  Why do people say this? “Talk to a lawyer”. It’s the most useless advice. Okay, you don’t know. That’s fine. Don’t waste everyone’s time. Why just give this content free advice?
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Because if you suspect the law does apply to you then you need a lawyer to vet the details. For most this probably doesn't apply, but you have to decide based on the specifics of your situation and those should include details you wouldn't post publically. also if you are a lawyer or come off as a lawyer giving legal advice and you miss one rare detail that matters for one person you are liable for bad advice. So saying talk to a lawyer is a way to get around that. Talk to a lawyer if you want to know more detail.
    - renewiltord 1y ago
      I mean I get it. It’s just that unsolicited advice to talk to a lawyer is kind of useless? In this particular case it’s worse than useless because you’ll never get a good lawyer to take this case. It’s like some automated LLM response.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        most talks with lawyers do not lead to court. They can give plenty of useful advice in many other situations. Just knowing how to frame things with the next job for example. now granted it isn't worth it for most of us to bother. However if there is any doubt ten minutes and a few dollars is worth the cost.
        scarface_74 1y ago
        Yes a lawyer is going to be able to give you career advice and tell you how to phrase the answer to the question “why did you leave your last job”? I already knew what to do. Remove any connections from LinkedIn of anyone who knew that I was PIPed. I knew that any employment verification would go through TheWorkNumber and all it would know were dates and comp amount. Not that anyone asked…
Tempest1981 1y ago
> 49 of the 50 states are at will employment Montana is the exception, passing a "Wrongful Discharge" law in 1987

neilv 1y ago

For better or worse, neither of us is a lawyer, but I'm comfortable in saying that the affected people should: Talk. To. A. Lawyer. Isn't that better than us random Internet people telling them -- although we think something shitty is going on -- they definitely don't have a case, and they definitely shouldn't talk to a lawyer? (For all we know, an actual lawyer might tell them that they actually do have a case.)

scarface_74 1y ago
It really doesn’t take a lawyer to know what “at will employment” means. A case for what unless it’s discriminatory. Your employer doesn’t have to justify letting you go - at all. Even looking at your citation, it shows that constructive dismissal is only actionable if you can show that they made working conditions harder and they were targeting you under a law meant to protect you against discrimination Companies have been giving employees an ultimatum between “relocate or quit” forever.
- neilv 1y ago
  Also, in combination with possible constructive dismissal, the company is possibly defaming the employees in a way that predictably adversely affects their ability to gain new employment. And there may be other potential problems that aren't apparent to me, since I'm not a lawyer. Talking to a lawyer about this is low-effort, low-risk. You get a lawyer's name from friend/family or another kind of lawyer you know, or you call the local bar association referral service (or, if poor, maybe go first to a law school free clinic near you, to see what resources they can point you at). Then you get a free initial consultation with an actual lawyer, who can tell you whether they think you might have a case. That's all I have to say on this topic. (Side Note: You might have been discussing this from a standpoint of Someone Is Wrong On The Internet, and you want to help more people understand At-Will, for example. I can understand that. But I was discussing this from a standpoint of Don't Screw Over Vulnerable People By Discouraging Them From Talking To A Lawyer When I Think They Should.)
  - nradov 1y ago
    You're not making any sense. Who is being defamed in this hypothetical scenario, and how?
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    > the company is possibly defaming the employees in a way that predictably adversely affects their ability to gain new employment. And there may be other potential problems that aren't apparent to me, since I'm not a lawyer. Why is it that the "I'm not a lawyer, but" comments are always giving the worst legal advice? There is no defamation case anywhere in this situation.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to say either way. See a lawyer if you're impacted and see what they say. Don't take legal, medical, nor relationship advice from the internet.
      - scarface_74 1y ago
        It’s getting to a point where it’s like you’re saying that I’m not a physicist but you might need to ask one before you jump off of a 25 story building, you might survive.
    - neilv 1y ago
      > There is no defamation case anywhere in this situation. They said they were terminating lots of people for poor performance, while terminating lots of people. And there's plausible reason to suspect, given the frenzy of headcount reductions going on, that it wasn't actually for poor performance. > Why is it that the "I'm not a lawyer, but" comments are always giving the worst legal advice? Why are a couple people on an epic tour de force of commenting, energetically telling people to definitely don't talk to a lawyer about any possible wrongdoing by this company?
      - JustExAWS 1y ago
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  >It really doesn’t take a lawyer to know what “at will employment” means. It takes a lawyer to understand an individual's situation, background, and contract in order to see if this is just a bad but legal hand, or in fact something worth filing against. We don't know every engineer's story that is impacted here. >Companies have been giving employees an ultimatum between “relocate or quit” forever. Yes, and severance packages makes it less tempting to try and look into suing.
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    Were you really confused by “your contract” at any job? I’ve signed 10 over the years and they basically all spell out - how much you are going to get paid, when your start date is and you are an at will employee. I was also hired by BigTech in 2020 and assigned to a “virtual office” and my position was designated as “field by design” meaning that it was suppose to be permanently remote. There was nowhere in my contract that I would never be expected to return to office and in fact AWS did tell all of their “field by design” roles that they would have to come into the office by the beginning of the year. I was already gone by then. Don’t you think you would have heard at least one case of a successful lawsuit by employees of at least one of these companies? Especially the US’s second largest employer? You think a local lawyer “recommended by a family friend” is going to successfully take on a trillion dollar+ market cap company?
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      >Were you really confused by “your contract” at any job? I live in California and many things have changed over the years in terms of labor laws. So yes, I don't know if what I signed is relevant today (e.g. non-competes). >There was nowhere in my contract that I would never be expected to return to office and in fact AWS did tell all of their “field by design” roles that they would have to come into the office by the beginning of the year. Okay, and some employees may have argued for those protections in their contract during negotiations. I'm not that high up, but I imagine some MSFT workers in Seattle may be. > Don’t you think you would have heard at least one case of a successful lawsuit by employees of at least one of these companies? It may be out there, but we may not have heard of it. I'm not a lawyer, I don't spend my time digging through court cases, and anything I may find may only be regionally valid and not matter to where you or I live. >You think a local lawyer “recommended by a family friend” is going to successfully take on a trillion dollar+ market cap company? Sure, that happens all the time in minor cases. You'd be surprised how sloppy offices can be with compliance. There are still cases of discrimination that courts fine to this day. Again, that's not for me to determine, though. That's for a firm to analyze, accept or reject. I don't know why you're questioning me about a sector I'm not involved in. Ask your "family friend" lawyer to dig up cases for you. They are much better at that than me.
dymk 1y ago
Talk to a lawyer is good advice, and there are approximately zero employment lawyers able to take on new clients in the Puget Sound area.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  FYI no reasonable lawyer is going to take a constructive dismissal or defamation claim for this case, like some aggressive commenters are instructing people to do. These aren't winnable claims. If a lawyer did take your case and start billing you for it, they're just milking you for cash until the inevitable dismissal. This is why the "I'm not a lawyer, but" advice on the internet isn't as benign as it seems. It gives some people false ideas about what lawyers can do for them which leads to a lot of wasted time talking to lawyers at best, or a lot of wasted money on a dead-end case at worst.
renewiltord 1y ago
Why do people say this? “Talk to a lawyer”. It’s the most useless advice. Okay, you don’t know. That’s fine. Don’t waste everyone’s time. Why just give this content free advice?
- bluGill 1y ago
  Because if you suspect the law does apply to you then you need a lawyer to vet the details. For most this probably doesn't apply, but you have to decide based on the specifics of your situation and those should include details you wouldn't post publically. also if you are a lawyer or come off as a lawyer giving legal advice and you miss one rare detail that matters for one person you are liable for bad advice. So saying talk to a lawyer is a way to get around that. Talk to a lawyer if you want to know more detail.
  - renewiltord 1y ago
    I mean I get it. It’s just that unsolicited advice to talk to a lawyer is kind of useless? In this particular case it’s worse than useless because you’ll never get a good lawyer to take this case. It’s like some automated LLM response.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      most talks with lawyers do not lead to court. They can give plenty of useful advice in many other situations. Just knowing how to frame things with the next job for example. now granted it isn't worth it for most of us to bother. However if there is any doubt ten minutes and a few dollars is worth the cost.
      - scarface_74 1y ago
        Yes a lawyer is going to be able to give you career advice and tell you how to phrase the answer to the question “why did you leave your last job”? I already knew what to do. Remove any connections from LinkedIn of anyone who knew that I was PIPed. I knew that any employment verification would go through TheWorkNumber and all it would know were dates and comp amount. Not that anyone asked…

Tempest1981 1y ago

> 49 of the 50 states are at will employment Montana is the exception, passing a "Wrongful Discharge" law in 1987